Minnesota Police Department Digitizes Evidence Management Process

  • Jul 31, 2024

Genetec Inc., a echnology provider of unified security, public safety, operations, and business intelligence solutions, announced that the New Brighton Department of Public Safety in Minnesota has digitized its evidence management processes with Genetec Clearance.

Home to 24,000 residents, New Brighton is a nature lover’s hub with 13 parks, an executive golf course, and bordering beautiful Rice Creek. To protect this family-friendly suburb, the city takes a technology-forward approach to its public safety initiatives.

They use the CentralSquare RMS and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) to manage 911 calls, first-responder dispatch, and incident response while streamlining information-sharing with other police departments. They also modernized their surveillance technology to include i-PRO body-worn and in-car camera systems, which are synched to capture high-resolution video of situations in progress. In addition to RMS data and mobile video, in the course of investigations, the department collects cellphone and doorbell footage, audio recordings, and more.

Trevor Hamdorf, New Brighton Deputy Director of Public Safety, said, “We’ve gained a lot from this solution. We want to share what we’ve learned with other agencies and help them achieve these efficiencies, too. From a time, resources, and safety perspective, there’s great value in this cloud-based public safety technology,”

Storing and sharing a fast-growing amount of data became more complex and time-consuming. More than 1,000 digital media requests are received per year, and each one took department records staff an hour or more to burn onto DVDs. To give time back to those resources, the department has digitized its evidence management process with Genetec Clearance.

As it integrates seamlessly with the CentralSquare RMS and i-PRO cameras, Genetec Clearance delivers a comprehensive public safety solution that streamlines processes for everyone from dispatch operators to police officers and records staff. This saves significant hours by automating manual processes from dispatch through evidence management. Additionally, since Clearance is web-based, officers can access information from anywhere. Being able to set user permissions for viewing, downloading, and exporting evidence within Clearance allows the New Brighton DPS to further protect and compartmentalize data.

Ensuring evidentiary integrity is particularly important for criminal cases and discoveries. With all data stored in the cloud and protected by built-in security features in Clearance and their Microsoft Azure Government cloud, the New Brighton DPS is assured data is safe, and privacy is protected.

Using the Clearance camera registry feature, New Brighton DPS has also started collaborating with other organizations. With the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT), for example, interstate cameras are linked on a city map with Clearance. Should an incident occur, they can quickly locate nearby cameras and send MnDOT a video evidence request, all from the DEMS.

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